Killing me Softly

September 1, 2011

My friends and I recently entertained the question as to whether it was reasonable to believe businesses were sitting on their hands because of the President’s actions. I don’t think much more evidence is necessary than to point out the NLRB’s action against Boeing. The Administration is arguing that Boeing must offer its Washington-state based employees redress because Boeing invested $1 billion in a plant in South Carolina. Whatever the facts of the Boeing case, what the NLRB is after is to give unions power over employers who wish to open plants in other states.

Yeah, that might impact a company’s desire to make big investments. Then there’s health care, but we’ve already covered that one numerous times. Another major job-killer is all the money that’s being wasted on “green energy.” Green energy is just another way of saying producing energy inefficiently. Or put more simply to make energy more expensive. But don’t believe me, believe the President.

In a rare moment of candor, candidate Obama tells us “under my plan of a cap-and-trade system electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket.” Okay cap-and-trade failed in the legislature, but now he wants to enact it via the EPA.

Let’s be clear, his desire is to make energy more expensive. He may actually believe that will create more jobs. I think he does. I’m not sure under what economic theory subsidized inefficiency is to an economy’s benefit, but that’s his plan. If it raises the price of energy, then well, everyone will have to adjust.

So, businesses are, indeed, adjusting. They’re simply waiting until he’s gone. If he’s not gone in 2012, well, then that will be interesting in that sort of Chinese way no one really likes.

National Review has helpfully catalogued the top ten job killing regulations of the Obama administration:

I’m sure each of these regulations has some virtue in the same sense the Federal government could reduce traffic fatalities by enacting a 100% sales tax on the sale of new cars.

But I don’t find much mystery in why very few businesses are hiring. After all, if the people in charge believe inefficiency breeds economic growth, then who knows what helpful ideas they will come up with next?